By the Blood
by Discovercat
Summary: After finishing her eighth year at Hogwarts, Hermione enters into Auror training which triggers a discovery about her true heritage, leading her in new and surprising ways. Family might not always be about blood, but in the wizarding world, in the right hands, blood trumps all. EWE
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I'm horrible for starting another story, and yes, I'll confess, this is another addition to the million other 'Hermione is Blaise's twin sister' fics, but this is another plot bunny that wouldn't leave me alone.

Disclaimer: If Harry Potter was mine I certainly wouldn't be on this site. Aka, Harry Potter isn't mine.

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**Chapter 1- Forgive Me**

It started like any other day. Beeping filled her room and Hermione opened her eyes and stared balefully at the machine next to her bed. She reached out to hit the snooze button, because what had she been thinking setting her alarm for six am on a Saturday, when the beeping changed into words.

"You have to report for training today," her voice informed her over and over.

Hermione groaned and dropped her head back to her pillow. That was right. It was time for her to pay up on her side of the bargain she'd made with Harry and Ron. They went back to finish their schooling at Hogwarts and she joined them for at least a year as an Auror.

"You have to report fo-" She slammed the off button and rolled out of bed. It was time to face the music.

This was not how she'd envisioned spending her summer, but Harry and Ron had not wanted to wait. It was barely three weeks after their graduation and they were already starting the program. No downtime exploring museums and libraries in other countries or simply enjoying not being at war. Not accepting any of the many apprenticeships she'd been offered or continuing to heal the rift between her parents by going to summer school at a muggle college. Nope.

When Hermione had complained, Harry had simply given her the look. The one that she knew he used to manipulate her with but somehow ended up falling for it every time. His green eyes took on a soulful cast and he'd simply said, "you promised."

And there she was, one week later, yesterday, finishing up all the paperwork and the preliminary tests that would allow her begin training as wizarding law enforcement.

Hermione stumbled slightly over her feet and almost face-planted on the way to the bathroom. She caught herself against the wall and cursed the early hour. She went about her business, eyes half lidded. But when she bent to finish rinsing out her mouth, her eyes focused on her reflection for the first time and she spat water all over the mirror.

What the hell?

She wiped her eyes furiously, evanescoed the water off the mirror with a thought, and took another look. Her reflection remained the same.

Not her.

"What the hell?"

The woman staring in shock in the mirror bared little resemblance to the woman who Hermione was used to seeing. The most obvious change, for Hermione, was her mouth. As the child of dentists and someone who'd at one time had very pronounced front teeth, Hermione was used to noticing her mouth. But her mouth today had a slight gap in between her front teeth. It wasn't very wide, in fact, most people wouldn't think anything of it. But Hermione did because it was not the way her mouth used to look. The fuller lips she now had just added to obvious difference.

Hermione couldn't help opening her mouth and touching the gap to see if her sense of touch matched that of sight. It did. That meant that the rest of the changes were probably real as well.

She'd never been pale, no matter how much she stayed out of the sun; her skin always retained an olive tint. In the summer, when she spent time outdoors, she tanned several shades darker. But her skin now could never be mistaken for a tan. Her complexion was darker than her former classmate Parvati.

Her nose was slightly wider; her cheekbones higher; and her eyes were slanted though the color and shape of them remained the same. Her hair was the same of course, except now it was jet black.

It was odd. Each of the changes by themselves wouldn't have been really discernible, but together they made her look completely different. Scrutinizing her face as she was now, she could recognize herself, but still...

"This is bizarre." Her voice was the same which was comforting. "Completely and totally bizarre."

Were Fred and George pranking her? This seemed like something from their dossier. She tried to remember if they'd mentioned any new cosmetic altering products. Last she'd heard they'd been focusing on spy gear based on the muggle 007, but they normally had a hand or foot in several different things at once.

She turned to call her wand to her hand when she noticed the next changes. She was taller; her legs were longer which explained her earlier lack of coordination. And her hips and backside were larger. Her chest, always on the generous side, was unchanged, she wasn't sure how she felt about that, but now she had an hourglass figure.

What could possibly be the point of the twins giving her something like this?

"If you are still in bed, angry at losing the chance to tour Spain's most famous apothecaries with Potions Mistress Abena Falgune, stop sulking and get up. Once in a life time chances are not the same as agreements with friends." Her voice said in the next room.

Hermione had not been in a good mood when she'd programed her alarms. Still, she had to get back on track. She had to be at the Ministry by 6:55.

Wand in hand, she said a charm that she'd all but had to sell her firstborn child to get, a spell that usually dispelled most of the Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes' products.

Nothing happened.

She frowned.

Her next spell was a simple finite incantatem. It dispelled more spells than it probably should. Unfortunately, not the spell on her.

It seemed she would have to get more advanced.

Fifteen minutes later, she lowered her wand in defeat. She'd used every revealing and dispelling charm that she knew, and thanks to years of fighting Voldemort, she knew a lot of them.

According to all these spells, there was nothing wrong with her.

And she was revising her ideas about the Weasley twins. She hadn't seen either of them in a week since the graduation celebrations finally stopped, which didn't technically mean anything, but them putting a spell on her that she couldn't break before she started a new job wasn't their style. There was joking and then there was something that could have a negative effect on her life.

She couldn't train if people didn't believe she was who she said she was. This would be sadistic for them and although some of their jokes treaded quite close to the line, she, as a friend, was someone who they respected those boundaries with and they'd been eager for her to join Harry and Ron. "We want ickle Ronniekins to survive, don't we?" George had said, the twenty millionth person to make sure she was still going that day.

Hermione took a deep breath. She couldn't panic. She would get dressed and then try one last spell.

Slight panic morphed into annoyance when she had to alter her pants to fit over her wider hips; her ankles showed because she refused to lengthen them. By the time she finished getting dressed, she was ready for this to be over.

The spell she was about to use was Gray area magic because it dealt with blood but Hermione didn't care. She was going to simply override whatever had been done to her by forcing her blood to reassert its dominance over her body.

She intoned the words, flicked her wand at the right times, and felt the magic flow over her body. The air stilled for a moment, and then the blood wards protecting Hermione's house, her parent's house, fell.

What?

The panic she gave into feeling was only added to by feeling her body change further. She'd grown taller, her pants stilled showed the same amount of ankle so she guessed in her torso, and her arms had lengthened in proportion.

Hermione tried to put the wards back up, but couldn't because _they didn't recognize her as blood kin to her parents_.

This was definitely not a Weasley prank.

She put up new, non-blood, wards around her parents' property and practically flew down the stairs. Both her parents were up and would be in the kitchen. They went in early to their practice.

"Mom!" Hermione didn't know what her mother could do with such an obvious wizarding problem, but part of their agreement after she'd restored their memories was that she didn't keep secrets from them. She'd been keeping up with her part of the bargain for the most part.

Her mother looked up from place at the table and goggled at the young woman standing in her doorway. "Who are… Hermione?"

"I have no idea what happened." Hermione needed to get the facts that she knew out quickly. The last thing she wanted was for her parents to think that she was acting out because of their extremely overprotective and mistrustful reaction to her messing with their minds. "I woke up and looked like this. I'm going to get it checked out when I go to the ministry."

Her dad walked past her absently, and then stopped and turned around. "Who?"

"It's Hermione." Her mother said, an odd note in her voice.

Hermione looked at her mother, at Judith Granger with her slightly curly auburn hair, peaches and cream complexion, and thin almost straight body type. Judith looked shocked, yes, but there was something else.

Her dad seemed to collapse in the chair next to her mother. Joseph Granger put his head in his hands.

Hermione's eyes narrowed. This was the point where they were supposed to start lecturing her about the obvious issues inherent in the wizarding world and shouldn't she just give up this whole auro business which she really wasn't interested in and go to a real school so she could move on and make something of herself. Her parents, in the last year, had not missed any opportunity to try and convince her to fully commit herself to a muggle lifestyle. This, should have been a prime opportunity for them to do so. Instead… she peered at her mother and her father who still hadn't lifted his head.

They seemed guilty.

"Mom?" She crossed her arms. "Dad? Do you know something about this?"

Judith sighed. "Sit down Hermione."

Hermione sat across from them, wondering why she felt like she was about to face Voldemort again.

"We really should have told you sooner." Her dad lifted his head. "But we loved you so much and it seemed like a dream."

Well, that sounded ominous.

Her mother swallowed and her dad seemed to be steeling himself. Their guilty expressions grew.

Hermione analyzed all the facts, especially the new non-matching blood, and came to one scary conclusion. "Am I adopted?"

There was a pause.

Hermione's stomach twisted into knots.

Her father nodded.

She released a breath like she'd been hit in the gut.

"I'm so sorry! Don't hate us!" Her mother burst into tears.

The last time Hermione had seen her mother like this, she had just restored her memories and Hermione had been the one doing the apologizing. She was around the table and hugging her mother in an instant. "I don't. I just want to know the truth."

Her father moved to her side and threw an arm around both women. "We can't have children, and so we decided to adopt. We were denied from most adoption agencies though because your mother is employed and planned on staying employed with a child." He sighed. "It seemed like a gift from God. We'd just been denied again, were walking through the lobby of that agency in fact, when we were approached by a man for a private adoption. He had all the proper paperwork and we didn't think anything off it until he asked for our blood."

That explained why her appearance hadn't changed before. If her appearance had been altered using blood as a baby, then it would stay there until something drastic happened.

"Then we saw you, and you were the cutest thing as baby, just a few months old," Her father smiled in memory. "We thought that maybe they had gone the private route because of your race, but we didn't care, you were going to be ours. Then they swore us to secrecy."

Her mother swallowed. "A war was going on, they said, and they needed to hide you someplace safe. We didn't care, we wanted a baby so bad and I'd already fallen in love with you. They used our blood to make you look like us and left."

That was a lot to take in. "So…" Hermione didn't even know what to tackle first. "So… my biological parents gave me up? Who were they?"

"We don't know. We never met them." Her father stood up. "Everything was very hush hush and at the time we didn't think anything of it. I barely remembered it after it happened, just an old man with a long grey beard and odd fashion sense, I think he was wearing a sparkly pink tie."

Hermione bit her lip to hold in her anger at that. An old bearded man with odd fashion sense… why was that not surprising somehow?

Judith nodded. "And later, we were so busy taking care of you that we pushed it from our minds. Magic seemed crazy. We had probably just imagined that part. It was better to not think of it."

"And when I got into Hogwarts?" This whole situation seemed unreal. How could her parents not have mentioned anything? They should have known that her feelings for them wouldn't change.

Her parents both looked away. "We were so shocked and it just seemed like it would be too much for you." Her father said.

"It was selfish of us, yes, but…" Her mother grabbed her hand and looked into her eyes. "We didn't want to lose you anymore than we already were."

Tears spilled from Hermione's eyes. "You wouldn't have. You're my parents. I'd never stop loving you."

"You say that now but," Judith sighed. "At the time we were scared."

They were still scared.

Hermione could see it in both of their faces, feel it in her mother's tense arms, and hear it in her father's tapping foot. She wanted to do more to convince them that they were still okay, that they didn't stop being her parents because their DNA didn't contribute to her making. But she felt numb. She patted her mother on the back.

"You should have told me." She said.

"We were going to but it never seemed like the right time. You were hardly home and when you were your focus was never on us." Joseph crossed his arms, his voice rising. "Now, of course, we know why, all that Voldy business and a whole war you were keeping from us. And after Australia…"

Hermione flushed. She would spend years making up for that. It mitigated some of her natural anger at finding out about this so late.

"It wasn't our intention to keep it from you forever." Her mother said.

"Hermione?" Her father asked when she just stared at him.

"I'm okay." Hermione rubbed her head. "It's just a lot to take in so quickly."

It was more than a lot. Part of her life had been a lie. A huge lie. She wondered if this was how Harry felt when he discovered the truth about the prophecy. Like nothing could ever be the same again.

"I know," Judith grasped Hermione's hand. "I know, but we didn't mean for it to come out like this."

They never wanted it to come out. Hermione could read it in their faces. And she squeezed her mother's hand back before tugging hers free and taking a step back. "I get that… I just…" Hermione glanced at the clock. "I need time. I need to think."

Her mother bit her lip, a mannerism that Hermione had picked up from her. "We understand, just… don't-"

"I'll be back tonight." Hermione said. "I'm almost late."

She didn't wait for their response, simply grabbed an apple and muffin from the table, and went back upstairs. The numbness was subsiding and she felt her war instincts taking over, prioritizing things. This hoopla wasn't anything that she couldn't deal with later.

She wiped the tears from her face, grabbed the things she'd packed for her Auror training, and then apparated to the Ministry.

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A/N 2: Hope you enjoyed. Let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Here you are!

Disclaimer: Harry Potter remains outside of my possession and ownership.

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**Chapter 2- Within You**

Hermione stormed into the Auror meeting room. Her Patronus to the Auror in charge of their training asking to be excused for being late to training that morning had been denied. His return message had said only death could excuse her. She'd been tempted to send a message back saying 'that can be arranged'. She was the last to arrive and the other trainees were already standing in semi-formation with the tall stocky man who was their trainer across from them.

"Can I help you?" Auror Caiphus Suboyger asked. Like the day before, he looked like he hadn't slept in several hours with a scraggly beard.

She barely restrained herself from strangling him. Harry and Ron were standing near the door and they gazed at her in interest, no recognition in their faces. None of the other trainees recognized her, but Theodore Nott, the one of the Slytherin trainees, was staring at her intently.

"Hermione Granger, reporting for training sir." Hermione said. She barely resisted a mocking salute.

Caiphus blinked.

"Hermione?!" Her friends chorused.

"Huh." Caiphus scratched his chin. "So that's your emergency. I'm guessing it's permanent since the wards on the Auror office didn't change you back."

Permanent. Permanently looking like a stranger even though this was how she was meant to look. She was still feeling numb about the whole thing. "I woke up this way sir."

He nodded and circled her. "Must've had blood spells done on you then. The last tests we did for magic aptitude and blood identifiers probably canceled them out. Not the first time it's happened to a trainee, won't be the last though yours is the first I've seen. 'ccording to rumors Mad Eye had one who grew three feet overnight. Half-giant it turned out. Another who shrunk." He gave a nasty grin. "And my favorite, the wizard who woke up a witch."

Several of the male trainees looked ill; two of the other female trainees looked annoyed while the other two couldn't keep the grins off their faces.

"That definitely puts my situation in perspective, sir." It also showed her that this wasn't all that uncommon in the wizarding world and reminded her that they didn't have the same hang ups about race that muggles did. It was blood that was the issue and in the racist wizards' eyes she'd just upgraded.

"I thought it would." He stopped in front of her. "Now get in line, we're already five minutes behind and yes people, we will be making up those minutes later. Ms. Granger, for your sake, I hope that you've got your coordination in order because war hero or not, I will fail you if you're not up to task."

He'd actually made it quite clear yesterday that he would relish failing her. Like most of the more ineffectual Aurors, he seemed to hold a grudge against the Trio for their fame after the war. Her inability to hide the fact that she'd rather not be there had only made him target her more. From the sadistic twist to his lips, she was guessing that he was going to do his best to ensure that she did her worst.

Hermione remained calm. There was nothing that he could throw at her that she couldn't endure. And right now, it would be a welcome distraction from her adoption and whether or not she should try to find her birth parents.

Caiphus marched them into the other room and hell began. Hermione had known that Auror training wasn't going to be fun, but she hadn't thought it would be this demanding. Merlin knew that the way the Aurors had acted against Voldemort didn't demonstrate that their training had been this vigorous.

"How…how much do you think that they revamped this after the war?" Hermione asked between pants after their third set of calisthenics of the day. It wasn't even noon and she'd run at least three miles, partly at a sprint. They also had a weight training element.

Harry leaned against the wall breathing as heavily as she was. "The entire program was remember? Kingsley got together a think-tank and I'm pretty sure that muggleborns dominated the discussion. I even helped add a few things, remember?"

Hermione blinked at him, and thought about it. Between schoolwork, helping rebuild Hogwarts, and her own contributions to the overhauling of the Ministry, she'd forgotten that of all the departments Harry had been asked to help with, he'd actually done something with the Aurors. "Yes." She sighed. "The running was the muggleborns' idea wasn't it?"

"Yep."

"Don't sound so upset," Ron said. He was the least winded out of all of them and actually smiling. "Auror Caiphus says we have to train everything completely: mind, body, and magic. Wasn't that bad."

"Yesterday, I was five inches shorter." Hermione crossed her arms. "I'm still getting used to my longer legs."

"That's probably why you kept falling." Ron smiled at her, completely serious. Harry's sudden cough failed to hide his snort. "But you never stayed down and finished with time to spare so I'm sure you'll still pass."

"Thank you for that sage wisdom, Ronald." Hermione rubbed her forehead and sighed when she encountered a tuft of hair. She had thought her hair was unruly before. She was wrong. She'd made the mistake of letting Harry dump water on her head after the first exercise session. Her hair had risen as if it had a life of its own and she'd almost wrestled it back into its bun which it kept escaping from. She spelled the hair back.

"Trainees! Line up. Break is over, I hope you all had a nice time fixing your hair." Caiphus called. He'd chuckled every time her hair came loose. "Only two more sweat sessions and then the hard part."

The hard part he was referring to was the actual class part of the training where they would learn all of the rules, procedures, and methods of carrying out wizarding law. This part would be supplemented by all of the specialized spells that they would need to know. It was the part she was looking forward too since it wouldn't involve sweating.

The next three hours were painful, but fulfilling and there was not one trainee with breath left by the time they trekked into their classroom. The auror who waited on them reminded her of Mad Eye Moody, not in his appearance, but in the way he carried himself. This man saw everything around him, suspected that it was all out to get him, and was prepared to guarantee that wouldn't happen. A cloak of paranoia was over him just as snugly as the non-descript gray robes he wore. He was shorter than Caiphus and Ron, only a few inches taller than her, and he was built like a barrel. His grey hair was in a muggle military-esque buzz cut and his craggy, lined face was clean shaven. There was an oddly shaped scar that started at the tip of his chin and ran down his neck to disappear under his cloak, like he'd been bisected. His dark blue gaze raked over everyone at least twice under barely there eyebrows.

"My name is Tiberius Glenshade." His voice was soft and a light tenor, with a lilting accent that she couldn't place. "I will be your instructor in all things related to your interaction with the law. Pay attention because I do not and will not repeat myself. This is a privilege you have earned and one you will have to work to keep. If you misbehave I will let you go because in this line of work, stupidity costs not only you, but your partner, and those you are charged to protect."

Harry and Ron were eating this up. Hermione sighed inwardly and reminded herself that these would be good skills to have, great knowledge to know. And since this was the intense fast track program, it wouldn't last as long as the normal course.

And worrying about the length of the course and burying her head in the knowledge kept her from dwelling on her own situation.

Tiberius went on about the vaunted history of the Aurors skipping, she noticed, most of the second Voldemort war. That really hadn't been a shining example of Auror competence. Harry covered his mouth when the older Auror mentioned 'some of their number' fighting in the last battle and she raised her eyebrows. Ron opened his mouth, looked at Harry, and then closed it. None of them challenged him. Kingsley and Tonks had fought in the last battle and both were Aurors so he hadn't lied.

Then Tiberius told them that they would be tested on this information and he hoped that they had been taking notes. Most of the class made a mass scramble for their parchment and quills. The Trio were not among them; Hermione had her boys trained in this area.

The sounds of quills scratching and Tiberius's quiet voice filled the room for the next two hours. Most of it was things she already knew from her extensive reading, but Hermione happily lost herself in the different ways an Auror was allowed to enter a building without needing a warrant and the proper steps for an arrest. However, her sanctuary was interrupted right before they were dismissed.

Due to the grey area of blood wards and the Aurors' use of blood magic, that subject was one they addressed quickly, Tiberius had told them. Then, after going over the basic legal types of blood magic and the few advanced ones, he switched to talking about illegal uses. And that's when he singled her out.

"Ms. Granger, as you can see, has recently been released from one of our illegal blood magic spells." Tiberius gestured to her, even as the chalk on the board behind him began listing the names of blood magic spells that could alter her appearance.

It took all of her Gryffindor courage to not shrink back when everyone in the class took this to stare more openly than they'd been doing all day. It took all of the manners and morality her parents had taught her to not hex Tiberius.

"I'm guessing from the fact that Ms. Granger is so shocked from this, that the spell was probably one of these three," the chalk circled the right three spells. "These are cast right around birth and have long-lasting effects. However," the chalk underlined the bottom two spell in the circle. "I have to rule out Sangusa Tempa which would have been broken during extreme stress or injury. One only needs to look at Ms. Granger's past two years to realize that she has experienced both, multiple times." The chalk crossed out the middle spell and the last one in the circle brightened. "And I have to also cross off Xansee Maede which would have altered her permanently. No, the answer to Ms. Granger, if that is truly still her name, is Sangusa Mimick. The spell is semi-permanent and impossible to detect until it has faded. Most likely, if Ms. Granger had not chosen to enter our vaunted profession, she would have never known the truth. It takes a special combination of factors to break this spell, not just limited to magic and blood sampling, and our tests have all of them." He smiled at her.

Hermione crossed her arms and glowered at him. She did not appreciate her business being put out for the world to hear and see.

"Do you know, Ms. Granger, the reasons behind your enspelling?"

"No," Hermione gritted out. "I only found out this morning and then I had to come here."

He nodded, flinched, examined the area around him, and then smiled at her again. "Such dedication in the face of mystery. Keep it up and you'll be doing missions with me in no time."

Hermione didn't even bother trying to smile. She just made sure that the teeth baring she gave him was not a scowl.

Harry and Ron were definitely suppressing laughter. The rest of the class looked undecided between laughter and dislike.

The Auror examined the room again, and continued his description of blood magic. Most of it Hermione had already read, but it was a new perspective which was just as valuable and made the little new nuggets of knowledge even better. When he finished, they were carted off by Caiphus for spell training.

Hermione's performance started off lackluster as she had to get use to her new arm span, but her reflexes were still there as was the muscle memory and the only one better than her was Harry. Even though it had been over a year since the war ended, she hadn't lost her war reflexes. There were still Death Eaters at large and she refused to be caught off guard. She been sparring with Harry, Ron, and members of the DA who'd come back to school at least once every week for the past year.

Despite Harry, Ron, Nott, Tracey Davis, and two other trainees finishing at the same time as her, Caiphus's zoned in on her the minute she stopped.

"This little exercise too easy for a big war heroine like you?" The Auror asked nastily. "Why don't we have a duel to see how well you remember everything? Everyone, get back! Granger wants a duel."

Granger had no desire for a duel and wanted to tell Caiphus off and storm out a la Trelawney. A glance at Harry and Ron and she sucked in a breath and squared off against the much older, more experienced instructor. The minute she faced him, he fired.

"This is not school anymore! Your opponent will not wait." He chided.

Hermione side-stepped the spell and returned with three spells of her own in succession and blocked two of his. His eyes widened as he blocked her spells. Hermione and he exchanged fire before she got tired of it and decided to put an end to his condescending attitude. She stopped holding back. He might be a big Auror, but she had been in war where she was the main target and while everyone was shooting to kill her, she had to maintain her morality and win. That made her spell choice both more creative and more vicious.

Five minutes later, Hermione's vision in her left eye was gone, her right arm hung uselessly at her side, and she was only upright because her legs had frozen in a stable stance, but Caiphus was stunned on the floor, his hands a mass of boils, his eyes glued shut, and wandless. Hermione proudly held his wand and used it to reverse the spells on them and handed it to him, point first. He gripped it tightly and nodded. There was grudging respect in his eyes when he looked at her.

"Ms. Granger has grasped the spells quite nicely, though with perhaps a bit too much creativity in certain areas. We'll work on that. Now let's see what the rest of you lot can do! Potter, you versus McDermott!" Caiphus barked.

0 0 0

Their training ended at six fifteen, after they finished running sprints to make up for each minute Hermione had held them over. They had to report the next morning on time or face worse. Joy.

Hermione could have chosen to go to the Hall of Records to see if anything had changed on hers since last night, but she decided that it was too late and she'd go when she had some free time. An evasion, she knew, but part of her was scared at what she'd uncover.

Another more pragmatic part of her still didn't trust the Ministry enough to let them work with her blood any more than the Aurors already had, and she'd watched to make sure that they destroyed her blood once the necessary tests had been performed on it as had Harry and Ron. She knew that she was going to have to go in, but she was going to delay.

Harry had asked them over for dinner the night before, so she and Ron followed him to Potter Hall, a countryside manor that he had discovered he owned during winter vacation. Hermione had dragged him to the bank so that he could see his capital and how much he would get in royalties after she had made him trademark his name so no one else could use it or write something about him without gaining his permission first.

It had irked her to no end to think that he had millions of books written about him with nothing to show for it. That annoyance had changed, however, after she'd seen how much he was worth as a Potter and the Black inheritance just doubled it. The royalties, Harry had argued, was overkill, but it was the principle of the thing. She and Ron had also agreed to help Harry move into the Potter Hall and out of the dilapidated Grimmauld Place which held too many bad memories for him.

Potter Hall came with ecstatic house elves at their master finally claiming them and she and Ron turned out to be superfluous to the eager elves who had Harry and Ron moved in in moments. Hermione had planned to move in as well, but her parents at the time had still been leery of her and she wanted to spend more time with them. She'd be moving in soon though. If not because of Auror training hours, then because Harry was annoying her with his constant asking. Or if she couldn't get over this with her parents.

The moment they stepped out of the floo, three house elves were there. Hermione's mouth twisted, but Harry had, much to his house elves' annoyance, given each house elf a stipend so she had nothing to be upset about.

"Gobsy, has prepared Master's dinner. Does master want anything else?" Gobsy was the in charge house elf.

"That's fine, Gobsy. We'll call you if we need anything else." Harry said. The house elves popped out and he groaned and rolled his shoulders. "I didn't think that there could be anything worse than Quidditch training under Wood, but I was wrong."

"Tell me about." Ron stretched his arms as they walked. "I don't think I've ever sweated this much."

"Remember, you helped influence this," Hermione reminded them, rubbing her neck. "I can't believe that we have to learn to knife fight. If I don't get my hand eye coordination right, I'll accidentally slit my throat."

"We can't just rely on our wands," Harry said. He dropped his robe onto the couch of the main living room and continued into the third dining room.

The small formal room was lavishly decorated in Victorian trappings, but the round table was more intimate than the longer tables and larger rooms of the other dining rooms. Any other time, she wouldn't have thought about sitting in such nice seats with her sweaty self. Hermione hung her robe on the back of the seat and sat with relish. Her legs thanked her exuberantly.

"Please tell me that you have pain killers here." She asked Harry. She blinked when she saw him and Ron staring at her owlishly. "What?"

Ron swallowed. "You look very different."

"I thought this was established several times by our instructors today, usually before they tried to humiliate me." Hermione was annoyed that he'd brought up what she'd been successful in ignoring for the past ten minutes. "And you've seen me all day. Surely it isn't that much of a shock now."

Harry's cheeks were bright red and he avoided her eyes. "Not particularly."

Hermione looked down and flushed when she saw that her top had ridden up and her pants down. Lovely. "Thank Merlin I didn't take off my robe. I had to transfigure my clothes this morning and it looks like it just wore off, probably because I'm so tired."

"So what happened?" Ron leaned forward eagerly. "I thought it was some joke of the twins at first, but then Glenshade started talking about blood spells which I thought were all illegal, but someone did that to you when you were a baby?"

"And how are your parents?" Harry laid a hand on her arm.

Hermione took a deep breath. "I don't know much more than you right now. I didn't even know the possible spell until Auror Glenshade told us. To start at the beginning, I'm adopted."

Harry sucked in a breath and Ron lost most of his enthusiasm. "Are you okay?" Ron asked.

She came in a different race and they wanted to jump right into details and how it happened. She was adopted and suddenly her feelings mattered.

"I'm okay considering." She hugged herself as the thoughts and feelings of earlier came into focus. "Part of the reason that I'm not griping more about training is that it keeps my mind off of everything." She sighed. "And I know that once I absorb everything I will be fine. My parents still love me and my not being their biological daughter doesn't change anything for me." Not on the surface anyway, but she didn't know how long it would take the feeling of being betrayed to go away.

"We'll help anyway we can." Harry pulled her into a hug.

Ron got up and hugged her as well.

"Thanks, I know I can count on you guys." Tears fell from her eyes and she sniffed, but didn't give into sobs.

They held her until she stopped her tears and then Ron's stomach growled.

"Sorry."

"No," Hermione pulled back. "I'm hungry too."

Harry called for his elves and dinner was served.

"Do you want to find your real parents?" Ron asked after he finished his first plate. "Just to see where you came from?"

"Yes, of course I want to." Hermione said. "There's more to the story."

"There always is." Harry deadpanned.

That brought out a bittersweet smile from her. "In this case, my parents knew about the spell on me. They willingly gave their blood for it. They wanted a baby so much that when the people who approached them asked for blood they didn't care about what they needed to give as long as they got me."

"'The people who approached them'?" Ron repeated. "Isn't that a little harsh against your birth parents? If it was during the war then-"

"No, I don't think that the people who put me up for adoption were my birth parents." Hermione had gone over her parent's story in her head several times during the day despite her attempts at distraction and it didn't make sense.

Why would a wizarding couple who wanted to give up a baby not only do it in the muggle world, but go through the trouble of changing her race and her very biological make up to ensure that it would be almost impossible for her to be reunited with them? It seemed over the top even with the war going on.

"My parents said that the people who gave me to them said that I'd been given up for safety purposes, and that they should never tell me about what had happened. I think that they put very specific memory charms on my parents to keep them from revealing anything too. They only remembered now because when I broke the memory charms I placed on them, I must have broken those too."

"And they didn't tell you until now?" Harry asked.

"When would they have? After I told them that I'd deliberately altered their minds and sent to another country? After I left immediately after that to go to school?" Hermione hadn't handled things with her parents very well. "There really wasn't a time, and though they said now that they'd thought about it when I was younger, I doubt it. When I get home, I'll investigate more thoroughly."

"Do you want help?" Harry set down his fork. His saving people thing was rearing its overprotective head.

"I'll be fine."

"It still could just be your birth parents being really paranoid." Ron advised through a mouth of food. He swallowed. "A lot of families were getting wiped out during the first war for just thinking wrong. They might have wanted to make sure you were really safe."

"Maybe, but," and this was why she knew there was more to it. "According to my parents, the person who did the spell was an old man with a long white beard wearing a sparkly pink tie. They clearly remember his twinkling blue eyes."

"Dumbledore." Harry said. "That's no one but Dumbledore."

Ron mulled it over. "Long white beards aren't exactly uncommon in the wizarding world, and a lot of men with long white beards would have still been alive then. And blue eyes are-"

"Stop trying to be the voice of reason. A sparkly pink tie?" Harry said sarcastically. "Dumbledore."

Hermione hid a smile behind a sip of tea. "That's what I was thinking. They didn't really remember the other two people, but this description was stuck in their heads."

"That doesn't make sense." Her redhead friend twirled his fork. "Why would Dumbledore take you from your parents and give you to other people after changing you with blood magic?"

Harry coughed.

Ron reddened. "Okay, so Dumbledore doesn't have the best record with babies, but-"

"But who knows?" Hermione interrupted. "I could have it wrong and my biological parents could have wanted me gone."

"I doubt that." Harry said.

"I have to consider that as a possibility," Hermione countered. "I also have to consider the fact that my biological parents might be dead. If they went to such lengths to hide me, they were probably in extreme danger."

"We'll have to look at the death list from the first Voldemort war." Ron said. "That might help."

"You think you're related to Angelina or Dean?" Harry asked, peering at her face closely.

"Why?" She frowned at him. Hermione thought about it, interposing her newly changed face next to both of the former Gryffindor's. Their features were completely different, Angelina definitely having broader features while Dean's were narrower. "I look nothing like either of them."

Ron nodded.

Harry opened his mouth, then shut it and flushed. "Never mind. It was stupid."

"Anyways, I think that looking at that list would be good. And maybe asking Professor McGonagall if she knows anything. She always seemed to be involved in Dumbledore's baby business." Hermione said.

"If Dumbledore really is behind this," Ron began. "If, then we probably should see if he's done it to anyone else."

"One thing at a time." Hermione said. Her hair band snapped and her hair burst out in all directions. She sighed. "One thing at a time."

"Did you always have this much hair?" Harry reached out and poked it.

Hermione swatted his hand away. "Yes, it's just thicker now. I have to apologize to Angelina."

"Why?" Ron shoved a drumstick into his mouth.

"Because she was right about our hair. And if I do, she will hopefully give me tips." Hermione pulled her hair back and sighed, not looking forward to the 'I told you so'. "So something can go right."

"It'll work out in the end," Harry said. "Don't worry about it. Think about how much fun we're going to have with Caiphus tomorrow instead."

Hermione just glared.

* * *

A/N: Hope you enjoyed. Let me know what you think.


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